For in that sleep of death what dreams may come.

[Mithadan]

Bethberry asks,

Can it be that one who died at the hands of the Witch King long ago reaches out to Merry, who will worst the Witch King. Or was the memory imbedded in the Barrow Downs themselves. The Downs were a portal to the past, after all, and in LotR even rocks may have memories.

I think that it is the Barrow-Wight who is to blame for Merry's nightmare rather than the Downs themselves. Our four Hobbit friends were under its spell and were slumbering as they awaited their death. The Wights were not the shades of those buried at the Downs, but rather evil spirits who later came and inhabited the mounds. Laws and Customs of the Eldar makes specific mention of the fact that the unhoused fear of Elves at times become anchored to particular places. So the Wights may be such spirits perhaps sent there by Sauron or the Witch King. Clearly evil, we can assume the Wight delighted in tormenting his victims. The dreams are likely a form of such torment, communicated to his victims by osanwe.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Well, not osanwe, which was a transferance of verbal or pre-verbal thought, experienced by the recipient as a 'voice.' Osanwe didn't transmit sense-data.

Tolkien it seems viewed body and soul in incarnates as partaking somewhat of each other's nature, being made for each other; in Elves, ultimately their faded hroar would exist merely as memories imprinted on their fear. I think it not unlikely that, under the magic of the barrow, a corpse would retasin some imprint of its last living thoughts, and that these would have been picked up by the animating wight, perhaps passed on through a series of possessed bodies- of which Merry perhaps was targeted to be the next.

Of course T had thought none of this through when he wrote this chapter (which was never really revised); one thought he had at the time that Black Riders were Barrow-wights, or closely related

[Mithalwen]

I wonder if Merry's experience at Bree, so soon after is significant - when 'He seemed to be asleep. "I thought I had fallen into deep water," he says to me, when I shook him' (Nob) adnhe says "I had an ugly dream". Aragorn says it is the Black Breath (and Eowyn has bad dreams when she experienced it also). Maybe Merry is more sensitive to such things either generally (as a Bucklander closer to the edge of the Shire and more aware of the dangers beyond, and also more curious and educated than most), or made more sensitive by his experiences in the Barrow.

[Bêthberry]

Nice idea, Mithadan, but as WCH has already pointed out, osanwe kenta was "direct thought transference" and Merry felt the blade in his heart and not just remembered it.

Also, I thought that the ability had atrophied down the years--ages--once language had developed and that by the Third Age only very few had the ability. We are told how Melkor was able to instill his thought, but was osanwe possible with unconscious minds?

Further, it seems a bit of a canonical conundrum to point to an essay Tolkien wrote c. 1959 when the Barrow Downs chapter was written in 1938, between Lost Roads (1936) and the Notion Club papers (1945-46). I think WCH has already said this.


Mithalwen, I think it is interesting that Merry's explanation at Bree concerns being overwhelmed by deep waters.

[Mithalwen]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Mithalwen, I think it is interesting that Merry's explanation at Bree concerns being overwhelmed by deep waters.

Because of the strong link between water and death in Middle Earth?

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

Because of the strong link between water and death in Middle Earth?

No. I don't necesarily see a link between water per se and death in Middle earth.

As for the fine tunings of rebirth, reincarnation, resurrection it strikes me that Flieger is right when she suggests that Tolkien modified the theologically difficult question of reincarnation to the less problematic concept of memory time travel or that term he used in the Letters, hoarding memory (if I am recalling it correctly).

[Mithalwen]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

No. I don't necesarily see a link between water per se and death in Middle earth.

Oh I do. There seem to be a disproportionate number of drownings, shipwrecks, being lost in snow and ice, let alone Boromir's funeral, dear bought fish and Legolas's message from Galadriel being interpreted as speaking openly of his death. Any body of water larger than a bathtub seems inherently perilous.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

Oh I do. There seem to be a disproportionate number of drownings, shipwrecks, being lost in snow and ice, let alone Boromir's funeral, dear bought fish and Legolas's message from Galadriel being interpreted as speaking openly of his death. Any body of water larger than a bathtub seems inherently perilous.

Ah now, your qualification of larger than a bathtub is as qualifying as my per se. I can't refer to the Bath Song!

You would see water more generally and I would see its applications. Drowning of course is an important theme. But snow and ice! Come now, it is not their aqueous properties that are a danger but their temperature (or lack thereof).

What fishers of Rings there are. Yes, Isildur and the Anduin had a fateful meeting, but it was the Ring's choice to leave his finger which ruined his plan (aside from his own intransigence), and it was poisoned orc arrows that killed him, not the River. And the tributary Gladden River was merely the scene of the conflict between Smeagol and Deagol; it was again the Ring that was perilous.

And Boromir's funeral, there the water is not itself dangerous but symbolic of the journey out, birth beyond the limits of Arda.

With The Forbidden Pool, Gollum risks death, but more importantly it provides an opportunity for Frodo to display what he has learnt of mercy.

In The House of Bombadil (sorry, I know some would like to eliminate Tom and Goldberry from the book as well as the movie but I won't), water is a powerful agent of the healing which the hobbits receive. In Rivendell, Frodo's response to the elven song is to "dream of music that turned into running water." There is a white stream which flows through Edoras, the water of which is used to wash clean the stones of defilement from Wormtongue. The Ents and Huorns use water undammed to achieve victory over Saruman.

And of course there is the famous Ent-draught itself with its amazing restorative powers. I suppose the cups out of which Merry and Pippin drank were smaller than a bath-tub, but the ent water itself is of a wider quantity.

So I wouldn't say that water is always associate with death in Middle-earth, especially since it is the domain of Ulmo. Symbolically it can be purification, rebirth, or baptism, as well as doom. Water is liminal in LotR but not necessarily always perilous.

But this takes us away from the topic. I first mentioned the details of Merry's experience under the influence of the Black Riders because it relates drowning with the dark side. It is Merry, after all, who dreams of drowning even under the safety and security of Tom and Goldberry. His is given Tolkien's personal nightmare and he is the one who helps overcome part of that dark despair.

As I said, the names I used can be quibbled with. But I think my delineation of three different varieties of return from the dead stands: 1. spirit returns in a new-born infant; 2. adult body is re-made; 3. corpse is re-inhabited by spirit. As far as names go, Tolkien's usage of 'reincarnation' seems to match type 2, contrary to the use of the word in the context of Hinduism, Buddhism, etc. 'Resurrection' comes from 'resurge', which to me suggests a literal rising up of the formerly dead body, but of course I realize that this isn't how it's used in the Christian context.

Didn't Tolkien in one of his letters use the term "serial longevity" in order to avoid the sticky concept reincarnation?

[Kuruharan]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Nice idea, Mithadan, but as WCH has already pointed out, osanwe kenta was "direct thought transference" and Merry felt the blade in his heart and not just remembered it.

I disagree. Merry was not actually feeling a blade in his heart, he only briefly "thought" he was. There is a great difference between the two. I don't believe sensory data was being transferred at all.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Again, osanwe was essentially verbal. Think of Gandalf's "voice" in Frodo's mind on Amon Hen.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Kuruharan

I disagree. Merry was not actually feeling a blade in his heart, he only briefly "thought" he was. There is a great difference between the two. I don't believe sensory data was being transferred at all.

Whatever it was that affected Merry, it was enough to make him clutch at his breast after he spoke, "Ah, the spear in my heart." I don't think he's being a melodramatic actor here. And then he comes to regular consciousness.

As Esty suggested on the Chapter by Chapter thread, it appears to be the golden circlet that slips over his eyes that instigates the dream. Can inanimate objects use osanwe?

[Kuruharan]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Whatever it was that affected Merry, it was enough to make him clutch at his breast after he spoke, "Ah, the spear in my heart." I don't think he's being a melodramatic actor here. And then he comes to regular consciousness.

As Esty suggested on the Chapter by Chapter thread, it appears to be the golden circlet that slips over his eyes that instigates the dream. Can inanimate objects use osanwe?

And yet the fact remains that there was no spear piercing Merry. It was a mental thing of some sort and not physical. I am not saying that it was osanwe as it is strictly defined but I think it was at least something similar.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

As Esty suggested on the Chapter by Chapter thread, it appears to be the golden circlet that slips over his eyes that instigates the dream. Can inanimate objects use osanwe?

The Palantir that Denethor held retained the image of his burning hands, so it seems that physical objects can retain 'echoes' of events. But how that works is another question (I don't know whether Tolkien ever attempted to account for that effect.) I wouldn't favour the 'reincarnation' theory in Merry's case - as the sceptical Theosophist once said, "Of course I remember past lives - but are they mine?

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by davem

I wouldn't favour the 'reincarnation' theory in Merry's case - as the sceptical Theosophist once said, "Of course I remember past lives - but are they mine?

And we all know the corollary to that: "Who am I?"

I wouldn't favour it either for Merry's dream. In the time travel stories, the link between past and present is far more elaborately developed. In Merry's dream, there is no way to account for a genetic or linquistic link between the person who had the experience and Merry.

Originally Posted by Kuru

And yet the fact remains that there was no spear piercing Merry. It was a mental thing of some sort and not physical. I am not saying that it was osanwe as it is strictly defined but I think it was at least something similar.

Well, the slip of the golden circlet over Merry's eye was definitely tactile.

[Gordis]

Originally Posted by Mithadan

I think that it is the Barrow-Wight who is to blame for Merry's nightmare rather than the Downs themselves. Our four Hobbit friends were under its spell and were slumbering as they awaited their death. The Wights were not the shades of those buried at the Downs, but rather evil spirits who later came and inhabited the mounds. Laws and Customs of the Eldar makes specific mention of the fact that the unhoused fear of Elves at times become anchored to particular places. So the Wights may be such spirits perhaps sent there by Sauron or the Witch King. Clearly evil, we can assume the Wight delighted in tormenting his victims. The dreams are likely a form of such torment, communicated to his victims by osanwe.

I don't think the Wight is to blame for Merry's vivid dream.
Firstly the dream happened after the Wight had already been chased away by Tom.
Secondly the WK sent the Wights from Angmar to inhabit the Barrows after the Plague of 1636, while the fighting Merry dreamed of and the fall of the Last Prince of Cardolan happened in 1409 - more than 200 years before the coming of the wights. By this time, the fear of the buried Dunedain would be long gone to Mandos. So how would the Wight itself learn the details of the fighting?